Although there is no truly self-professed movement calling itself this, existentialism naturally influenced numerous mid-century artists agreeing with existentialism’s understanding of existence taking place as an isolated solitary phenomenon in an absurd world but nevertheless affording the freedom for one to define oneself. Simone de Beauvoir said in 1965 that for these artists existentialism seemed to "authorize them to accept their transitory condition without renouncing a certain absolute, to face horror and absurdity while still retaining their human dignity" (qtd. in Dempsey 176). So existentialism refers more to the mood and thought in the art rather than a distinctive and consistent style.